Foreigners have been the target of many scams in China: they’ve been befriended by a stranger and taken to tea or cajoled into buying overpriced traditional art. And then there’s the one where someone comes up to you, asking if you want to ‘party’ at a karaoke bar, that one thing you’ve always meant to do.

For all the times this last scam has targeted foreigners, someone has finally gotten caught.

Fifteen members of a criminal gang based in Pudong have been arrested by Shanghai police for fleecing foreigners of their money by “luring them into a karaoke honey trap”, reports the Shanghai Daily.

Foreigners were reportedly targeted by the gang, which intimidated them into paying exorbitant fees or be held at the club.

Police were alerted to the diabolical plan by one of the gang’s victims, who had fallen prey to the scam. On April 15, a man of Egyptian nationality had agreed to go back to a local karaoke club in Pudong while taking a nighttime stroll outside his hotel, having been told beautiful ladies would be present.

However, at the club the man was approached by a group of burly men who demanded they be paid RMB 29,000 (US $4,600) for the man’s unspecified amount of time spent at the karaoke club.

However, being that the man was in the middle of taking a nighttime stroll, he was only able to pay with the RMB 11,000 (US $1,800) that he had on him. Unsatisfied, the burly men threw the victim into a car and drove him back to his hotel where they expected to be paid the remainder of the fees.

When stopped at a red light, the victim jumped out of the car and ran to a nearby police car.

On June 13, Shanghai police took 15 suspects into custody, who all confessed to committing seven similar crimes that earned over RMB 200,000.

Photos: timetotalkbeauty